PREFACE 



The method of treatment adopted in this book is the simple, 

 scientific method, — that of presenting essential facts in logical 

 order. The following of this method has led to some departures 

 from the conventional way of presenting poultry topics. The unity 

 of the poultry group is here conceived as essential and arising from 

 the nature of the birds, rather than as artificial and relating to the 

 purposes for which they are used ; and I have tried to give practical 

 effect to my very strong conviction that permanent poultry culture 

 must be a feature in permanent agriculture, and that each of the 

 common kinds of poultry has its peculiar place in agriculture. 

 Hence the methods of managing the different kinds of poultry are 

 not stated separately, as has been usual, but topics are discussed 

 in their own appropriate order with reference to all the kinds. This 

 arrangement emphasizes the things which apply alike to all kinds 

 of poultry, and makes it easy to show that good practice is simple 

 and that the same treatment will usually answer, in whole or in 

 part, for several different kinds, thus lightening the work of the 

 poultry keeper. It is believed also that by this arrangement of 

 matter the student or reader is given, with instruction in the details 

 of methods, a more comprehensive view of the subject as a whole 

 than by the usual mode of presenting it. 



To the best of my ability the book gives the consensus of author- 

 itative opinion of a many-sided subject. In appraising this con- 

 sensus I have had regard alike to practical authority, expressed in 

 the views and practice of good poultrymen, and to scientific authority, 

 found in the bulletins and other papers of those instructors and 

 investigators who have been foremost in reducing to order the 

 confused mass of common knowledge of poultry culture. To the 

 practical poultrymen and fanciers I am most indebted for facts; to 

 the instructors and investigators, for interpretations of facts and for 



